The massive year-end sales are here, and Singaporeans are officially the most price-conscious in the world: Study

To many Singaporeans, how big a price tag is can make it or break a deal.

A recent study polling 3,193 consumers globally has found that Singapore had the highest percentage of consumers who saw price as the top deciding factor when they were shopping online.

A total of 63 per cent of Singaporean respondents in the survey said that when it came to buying from e-commerce sites, price was the top influencing factor, the 2018 international holiday shopping report by Wirecard said.

This proportion was considerably higher than that of many other countries surveyed, including neighbouring Malaysia, where only 55 per cent of consumers said the same thing.

Globally, the average was 54 per cent.

Consumers in the US and UK were the most similar to Singapore, at 61 per cent and 60 per cent respectively.

And it’s not just in online shopping – a similar trend was observed among consumers who did in-store shopping. Again, Singapore had the highest proportion (67 per cent) of shoppers who indicated price as their the top decision-making factor on whether or not to buy items.

This was well above the global average of 59 per cent, and Malaysia’s 58 per cent.

As with the trend seen in e-commerce, 61 per cent of US consumers indicated the same, while 59 per cent in the UK did so.

Furthermore, 70 per cent of Singaporean respondents also chose price as the top factor deciding if they should return to the same store or site after the holiday shopping season.

Wirecard also found that consumers in Asia Pacific were the most “fashion-conscious”, as a majority of them chose to spend their money on fashion items – namely clothes and accessories. In Singapore, around 67 per cent of respondents did so.

Electronics was the second most popular type of product that consumers in Asia Pacific purchased, including 47 per cent of Singapore respondents. The company attributed this to the “technology savviness of the region”.

Next in line was beauty products, which was the choice of 32 per cent of Singapore respondents.

Chart depicting online shopping technology, stats of specific sales events, and the three most popular shopping categories in Singapore.

Wirecard

On average, 90 per cent of Asian consumers were likely to combine different channels (mobile, app, in-store or desktop) when shopping, with the main reason being the comparison of prices.

“As consumers in the region continue to evolve digitally, merchants and some small businesses are struggling with evolving their customer experience to meet the consumers’ demands,” said Jeffry Ho, Wirecard’s regional managing director in Asia.

He added: “As e-commerce growth continues to grow rapidly in the Asia Pacific region, businesses need to ensure that they are delivering the right experiences that cater to their customers’ needs, or risk losing them.”